WASTING DRUG WAR RESOURCES

The Key Is Cutting Demand, Not Supply

A recent report by the Government Accountability Office, commissioned
by Sen. Joe Biden, has come to an unsurprising conclusion: After more
than $6 billion spent, the controversial drug control operation known
as Plan Colombia has failed by large margins to meet its targets.

The goal had been to cut cocaine production in Colombia by 50 percent
from 2000 to 2006 through eradication of coca crops and training of
anti-narcotics police and military personnel. In fact, cocaine
production in Colombia rose 4 percent during that period, the GAO
found. With increases in Peru and Bolivia, production of cocaine in
South America increased by 12 percent during that period. In 1999 it
cost $142 to buy a gram of cocaine on the street in the United States,
according to inflation-adjusted figures from the U.N. Office on Drugs
and Crime. By 2006 the price had fallen to $94 per gram. ad_icon

President-elect Barack Obama won his historic victory by promising
pragmatic, results-oriented solutions aimed at the common good. The
recent report demonstrates that Plan Colombia does not fit those criteria.

The primary lesson for the new administration to take from Plan
Colombia's failures is something that many economists have been saying
for years: Efforts to decrease the supply of drugs in America without
major efforts to curb demand for them will only increase the profits
of drug dealers and the associated crime rates.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy, under which Plan Colombia
and other drug control programs operate, spends 65 percent of its $12
billion annual budget on supply-side efforts and only 35 percent on
the demand side. In 1971, when the Nixon administration initiated the
war against drugs, the pragmatic goal was to have the exact opposite:
two-thirds of funding for treatment and prevention and one-third for
law enforcement, crop reduction and drug interdiction.

During the Reagan, Clinton and Bush administrations, however, strict
laws were put in place aimed at reducing the availability of drugs on
the streets. These have served to give the United States the highest
incarceration rates in the world, with over one in 100 Americans in
jail or prison. Mass incarceration has broken up families and
communities, at a huge economic cost. In general, it costs about
$34,000 to lock someone up for a year and only $3,300 to provide
year-long substance abuse treatment.

There are no magic bullets for the socially and medically complex
problem of substance abuse. Still, several demand-side strategies have
proven effective at achieving the key goals of the drug war: reduced
consumption of drugs, improved health outcomes among substance users
and a decrease in drug-associated criminal activity.

Of the first 100,000 drug users benefiting from President Bush's
primary demand-side initiative -- the $300 million Access to Recovery
program -- 71 percent successfully completed therapy and abstained
from illicit drugs, according to the Office of National Drug Control
Policy. Of those with criminal histories, 85 percent remained out of
the criminal justice system. Other research has shown that drug
treatment programs can reduce drug use by over 70 percent and criminal
activity by 50 percent.

There is a simple strategy that Obama and his congressional colleagues
could take that would save about $6 billion a year: Cut supply-side
spending by the Office of National Drug Control Policy and require
that two-thirds of its funding be spent on demand-side programs. While
that is simple, it won't be easy. Fighting against these basic,
common-sense changes are entrenched special interests, including
defense and prison contractors and prison guards unions.

A broad coalition of Democrats and Republicans got us into the
drug-war morass. It will require a pragmatic, results-oriented
administration to get us out. Plan Colombia and much of the
supply-side programs in the war on drugs should be drastically scaled
back.